ust remember
what she had suffered and that it is hard for the loser to yield. It
should be his part to speak with humility and dwell but lightly on the
past while he pictured a future, entirely free from menial service, in
which she could live according to her station. All her years of poverty
and disappointment and loneliness would be forgotten in this sudden rise
to wealth; and to complete the picture, Blount, the cause of all her
suffering, would grovel, very unbankerlike, at their feet.

Blount would grovel indeed when he felt the cold steel that would
deprive him of all his stock, for he was still playing the game with his
loans and extensions in the hope of winning back what he had lost. For
money was his god, before whom there was no other, and he worshiped it
day and night; and all his fair talk was no more than a pretense to lure
Wiley into the net. Yet not for a minute would Wiley put up his option,
or his bond and lease on the mine; and for all the money that Blount had
loaned him he had given his mere note of hand. It was his promise to
pay, unsecured by any collateral, and yet it was perfectly good. The
money came and went--he could pay Blount at any time--but it was better
to rehabilitate the mine.

Wiley had a race before him, a race for big stakes, and he kept his eyes
on the goal. To earn fifty thousand dollars in six months' time, earn it
clean above all expense, required foresight and careful management, and
a big daily output, for every day must count. The ore on the dump was in
the nature of a grub-stake, a bonus for undertaking the game; and when
it was all shipped the profits would drop to nothing unless he could
bring up more ore. So he took his first checks, and what he could
borrow, and timbered and cleaned out the mine; and, to save shipping out
more ore, he had ordered expensive machinery to put the old mill into
shape. It was the part of good judgment to spend quickly at first and
build up the efficiency of his plant; and then the last few months, when
Blount would begin to gloat, make a run that would put him in the clear.
Clear not only of the bond and lease, but on Blount's stock as well, for
it would pay for itself with the first dividend; and, to save paying any
more royalties, Wiley was curtailing his wasteful shipments while he
prepared to concentrate the ore in his mill.

There were envious people in town who prophesied his failure and claimed
that success had gone to his head, bu